In Focus

24 GOES TO 109 MARKETS

Twentieth Television has sold Fox's serial drama 24 to stations in 109 markets, covering 85% of the country. The show will air on stations this fall. The show sold on a barter-only basis, including seven minutes of ad time for stations to sell and seven minutes of time for national syndicators to sell. Clearances include ABC affiliates Hearst-Argyle's WCVB Boston and Hubbard's KSTP Minneapolis and NBC affiliates Post-Newsweek's KPRC Houston and Gannett's KSDK St. Louis. The program also has been cleared on 18 major-market stations in the Viacom Television Stations Group.

BUZZ GAINS TWO

Acme Broadcasting's two-year-old morning news show The Daily Buzz has been picked up by two more affiliates of The WB network: Winston Broadcasting's WBNX Cleveland and Granite's KBWB San Francisco. That brings total clearance to 136 smaller-market stations, covering 36.2% of the U.S. Buzz offers stations a young, hip alternative to network news.

COURTROOM-TV RATINGS UP

TV courtrooms were crowded in the week ended Jan. 2. Homes using television (HUT) levels jumped 4% during the holidays. Paramount's Judge Joe Brown led the courtroom charge, seeing a 9% spike to its best rating of the season, 3.8.